


Icarus

by N110011



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), James Bond (Movies)
Genre: Aiming for novel-length bc I have no life, Asexual!Q, HMU if you want to beta, I read the SIS handbook and I am definitely being monitored now, James has feelings, M/M, Oh look an asexual character written by an actual asexual, Q isn't some posh kid, Skyfall, Slow Build, Spectre - Freeform, There Might Even Be Romance, original spy story I sneaked in, there might be smut later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-09-30
Updated: 2019-03-11
Packaged: 2019-07-20 16:46:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 5,372
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16141388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N110011/pseuds/N110011
Summary: “There’s a thin line between thrilling and absolutely terrifying. And there are people out there who walk this line, blindfolded and with smiles on their faces.I am not one of them, or at least I am not anymore.”Q is running from something in his past, James is searching for answers.Skyfall centric plus a original spy story I managed to sneak in.





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't written free fiction in a few years, and as per usual it's a great tool to get over some things in my private life (what a mess). I apologise upfront for some dark parts, I will TW certain things per chapter, but be warned it might get gore-y. Title is stolen from this song I bloody love.

There's a thin line between thrilling and absolutely terrifying. And there are people out there who walk this line, blindfolded and with smiles on their faces.  
I am not one of them, or at least I am not anymore.  
  
When you are reading this document, you are one of the few people I could entrust with what has been haunting me for most of my lifetime. Or at least the parts of it I could remember.  
  
It's a funny thing, really. Memory. Coming to think of it.  
While some people wish they were better at remembering things, I often wished I could cut down on details, numbers, events, everything that became too much over the years.  
  
There is a curse that comes with any gift, be it a skill like remembering or having a vivid imagination. While in younger days you may be happy about your talent to learn and find a way into a early graduate program, find a brilliant solution to a widespread problem or outgrow the standards of what others told you would be possible, there will definitely be days you will wish you took back. Like a childhood or when you turned down a friend or a date and things begin to fall apart around you.  
  
I'm not here to tell only the B-Sides of my story, this document is proof that I am still alive and kicking, at least if it reaches at least one of you.  
  
  
On the following pages I will conclude the last stories of my adventures, a farewell to the world out there, home to so many and most of them counted dead or missing, names on a stone wall, no one grieving for them, because they never existed.

Not in the eyes of the public and not in the eyes of those you are passing by.  
  
**I am one of them.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TklEhgZql4Q


	2. Chapter One

It was an early morning, foggy and cool, the air dripping with the last remnants of rain, where we begin.

  
A bony figure, covered in a dark blue parka carrying a shoulder bag, with his arms wrapped around himself in an attempt to keep warm emerged from the fog, heading down a run-down set of stairs, past old brick buildings, overgrown lawns and towards a bus stop. He sighed, reaching down into his pocket for spare change and rushed for the first bus to the train station.  
There wasn't much of an expression on his face, a hint of hangover, hidden only by a desperate attempt of a smile as the bus driver handed him the ticket.  
“1,70”, the ticket read.  
A glance passed his field of vision, barely noticeable, briefly and the bus driver pulled back fast, putting his hands back on the steering wheel.  
  
A scar, no, a set of scars, that flashed across the bus drivers mind again, some old and faded, some he could still count the stitches on. Even on his mind he could not shake them for a while. They would come back to him, every time he blinked for afew minutes. Then the image would make its way back to him throughout the day, during dinner with his family – was there a ring on his finger?  
  
The skinny boy passed and made his way up the stairs, a seat in the very back. The bus and its driver moved on.  
  
“1,70”, said the ticket.  
“Vauxhall”, said the bus in neon orange writing.  
The bus driver said nothing. He forgot to remind everyone of the next stop in his mild panic, or he just didn't care.  
The only other passenger being a woman in a thick down jacket, desperately trying to stay awake, make up smudged on the edge of her lip and the corners of her eyes.  
  
Getting closer to the city more and more people joined the bus, all their tickets at the same price, filling seats and going about their busy lives.  
The boy pushed his glasses back and watched from the edge of his phone screen. People kept passing, sitting, leaving at their stop, making space for more.  
  
_There was never a way to feel so insignificant_ , he thought to himself, _with the world being so vast and yet so empty._

 

“Final stop, Vauxhall. Vauxhall.”  
  
The boys hands trembled at the mumbled words, he knew the bus driver would remember him, as he saw him in the mirror, leaving his world, in his cubicle, protected by a plastic glass, but never safe from memories. As short and as ill as they might have been to him, there was a story attached to them.  
  
Scars are something indifferent, but there was something about the world my story takes place in, that people did not like. Maybe it was certain places of the body, the pain that comes with empathy or a scar that reminds them of themselves. Something, or all, or none of them at all.  
  
The boy could remember the stories behind most of them, a wrong move or a ill-tempered somebody else, a surgically precise move or an attempt to hide the past, he had seen them all. Of course, there would have been better ways, lasers being one of them, but somehow the idea of having to hide a double dozen marks forever didn't appeal to him. And there wouldn't have been a need to do so, but a hint of escapism covered in the requirement letter of the most recent job offer he took.  
  
_There would always be time to heal_ , he had thought to himself, lying on a stretcher, besides, healing was secondary to his life at this point. And running from the future was not an option.  
  
  
_4.4.7.1.9.1 Removal of Tattoos, Birth Marks and other marks that make an employee easy to identify from a distance of 1m distance are encouraged to be removed, if not possible covered up._  
  
It took him some time to overcome the idea of sterile air, needles, scalpels, lasers, stitches and doctor visits, yet there was more than the word ' _encouraged_ ' pushing the idea of being rendered unidentifiable, in light of recent events, of course.

 

“Vauxhall”, it echoed in his head as he stepped into the open, sharp, cold air biting his throat, and a even sharper pain hitting his heart, but he had yet to identify it as what it was. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ******
> 
> Welcome to Q branch!  
> I'll be updating every Sunday, and I'm currently aiming for novel-length so if you're enjoying this fic (or want to beta) let me know!
> 
> ******


	3. Chapter Two

Darkness, with an imminent, equally soothing shimmer of red, drawing silhouettes on a body, hidden away under blankets. The muffled, slightly distorted sounds of a radio alarm clock made their way through the scene, growing louder slowly.  
  
A hand reaching towards it, and the noises stopped. What followed was silence, the rustling of a thin blanket and the tired sigh of a man, staring blankly into the darkness with his deep blue eyes. His blonde hair showing more signs of grey than those of others his age, and a body covered in scars. Some had been treated with care, healed into thin, light outlines over time, some others more recent. A hole, sewn shut and swollen, yellow in the corners, about to burst open, as he reached for a packet of sterile adhesive band aids and moved through the darkness to a thin strip of light flooding through the crack of a door. A reminder of the day about to start late for the tired man.  
  
He washed this side off of him, cold water, a wake-up call to something else, something inside of him that had a will, something or someone he had yet to forget and bury.  
  
He hid the scar under a shirt and suit, then made it to his kitchen to leave a note.  
  
“Collect glasses, fix radio”, the note said.  
It wasn't a reminder to himself, but to a nameless person who was coming to his place every now and then. They didn't have a face, and they didn't know the man living in the flat. To them he was a man who wore suits and expensive watches, who liked to drink by himself and kept to himself.  
To the man they were 400 a month, a small fee to clean after him, he would sometimes tell himself.  
  
Of course there was a way for him to clean up his mess, but if his workplace had people to do that for him, who said he couldn't just do the same. There was a comfort in it, after all, knowing someone was always there to clean his whiskey glasses. Someone folding the sheets, collecting band aid leftovers, taking suits to the dry cleaners.  
  
There was a comfort in handing smaller tasks to others.  
  
He glanced over to the note he left on the kitchen counter before closing his door and making his way to the street downstairs, where a cab was waiting for him.  
  
“Good morning sir, starting late today?”, the driver greeted him, probably smiling. There was a button in his ear that attached to a clear, curled wire ending in his shirt collar.  
“Good morning”, the tired man replied, “Foggy today, isn't it?”  
  
It was a good way to greet each another, actually. It wasn't as obvious and gritty as “For crown and country”, but the little earpiece in the drivers ear suggested his pay was higher than the average cabbies, for equally demanding hours and having to deal with drunk people. Though, a different type of drunk.

 

 

The two men didn't exchange another set of words for the entirety of the drive. As they passed through the canary tunnels the one on the back seat closed his eyes for a minute, letting the past few days pass him by in a blur of memories.

 

He knew that there was a point he had to pass them onto paper, as roughly as possible, for there was no keeping information that never existed in his field of work. There was no work. He didn't exist. Neither did the cab, nor the driver.

The were ghosts in the eyes of most, and those who thought they knew the man would probably not greet the sunlight of the oncoming day.

 


	4. Chapter Three

"1,70" said the ticket in the skinny boys pocket, as he crumbled it up into a ball, just to unfold it later. He was nervous. He knew it was temporary and that he could control it, if he wanted to, but he also welcomed it. 

"Missing in Action", said the sign above a memorial plate, with plenty of space.  
"Missing in Action", said the silver bracelet on her wrist, as well.  
A secretary at the entrance, taking his name down and handing the skinny boy an ID badge with a plain, black lanyard.  
  
Her hands were steady. His were shaking. Not much, but she caught it. She didn't say a word. She didn't smile.  
But when their eyes met they both knew how the conversation would have went.  
  
"Nervous?", she would ask.  
"First day.", he'd reply.  
She would smile, he would smile back, but not the same way others entering the building smiled at her in hypothetical conversations. Distant, as if he wouldn't be part of their game, and yet friendly.  
She would wonder what it was about him, that made him seem like the others and yet, in a uniform way, different. She would go to lunch later that day, sitting at a table with her colleagues, and she'd wonder about him, his first day, the surgery scars on his hand, that he reached for the ID with his non-dominant hand. The stain on the inside of his dress shoe, from shaking it nervously back and forth on the wet ground of the bus floor, splashing it ever so slightly.  
She would wonder who he had been, before he had vanished from the mortal world. And why.  
She would think about the family she had left in the dark, the false business cards in her wallet, for when they'd invite her for a birthday, or a funeral, or a Sunday roast. And she'd think about the story she had told them, over the years, about her coworkers, about her boss, the fictional company she worked for, and why she never met anyone or had plans of keeping a family of her own.

 

As she drifted off into thought, food on her plate, colleagues chatting away, they knew she would be daydreaming, and they knew it was why she had kept her desk job for years. Even after she got asked to join a different department, even after her evaluation cleared her for a higher position. They made it no secret that she had just loved to watch them come home. They joked about her family being her colleagues and that behind her curly, big hair she was replaying the lives her new family lived.  
Reconstructing their worlds, so she could ask the right questions, when they came back.  
  
That was, of course, just a hypothetical scenario.  
  
The skinny boy didn't know the woman with the "Missing in Action" bracelet either, but he was wondering whom it was commemorating, and grew indefinitely nervous again.  
"1,70" said the paper, and crumbled in his thin fingers.  
And it still said "1,70" for a while, before he tossed it into a bin next to a large glass desk later that day.  
  
His glass desk, his office.  
  
The skinny boy tightened the tie around his neck and blinked into the collection of screens on his desk, fingers swiping across a part of the keyboard before he turned away and wandered off into a maze of cables, hardware and storage units to hold the contents of his office.

 

He was still nervous, feeling watched. He had all reasons to. There were no cameras in his office, but all eyes were on him. The new boy. The skinny boy. The new Quartermaster.


	5. Chapter Four

"There's a reason 00 agents aren't working off the books.", the woman said in a raspy, yet hushed voice. It was as if she expected the walls of her office to pick up her words, even though she was facing her visitor with cold eyes, they didn't seem to bother him at all.

She couldn't read him, not the way she could read others.   
Not the way he could read her, or the others.  
She could tell he was hurt, she could tell his last job had left him with more than just scars.   
  
"You can leave what you remember on my desk, and let medical check you for gods sake, I can't have my agents fall apart before noon."

 

He gave her a vague smile, rose from his chair and made his way past her desk.   
  
"Oh and 007", she interrupted, he complied but didn't turn around to face her again. There was a smile waiting to make a pass on his lips, reserved and yet...  
"good to have you back."

 

Briefing passed him by, new faces, old tricks.   
Medical was agonising, as per usual.   
  
Thin, red lines collecting in the sink, a plastic bag.   
Thin lines of metal. Safety.   
  
A hint towards a bigger picture, something he had missed while hiding amongst the dead. Hidden from the shadows, but also far from the light.   
  
He held them up into the dim neon light and let the rays bounce off them for a few seconds, before deciding it was better to keep them a secret for now.   
  
The old man was hardly ready for combat, he could tell himself. Once more he had been too close to the fire, played with the flames of something bigger than him, and yet, he knew it was exactly where he wanted to be. Even in that very moment. Shoulder aching, old wounds throbbing behind healed skin.   
  
There was time to heal.   
There was always time to heal, when there was no more time for him.   
At least it was what he had told himself.   
  
And while he washed the remnants of blood and sweat of his tired body he remembered another time. Another him.   
Another England. Another life, before he had become 007.

A time in the Royal Navy, before conquests and commemorative bracelets had appeared instead of colleagues out in the field.   
  
Back when his body had followed without wasting a thought on it, back when a target had been a ripple of circles on a piece of paper. Back when he was just James, at sea. Just James in navy blue.  
  
  
He would stand there for a while, staring down at the broken watch face, an engraved gift by someone who was long-gone. The last hint at normalcy, living among the dead, he had experienced and didn't have a chance to return to.

Or so he told himself.  
  


"Why don't you just... stay dead?", it echoed through the back of his head.   
  
He would leave it at home, he thought to himself in the dim neon light of the changing room, he would finally leave it.   
  
And he wouldn't.

 


	6. Chapter Five

There was a rumour making its rounds, spreading like wildfire. An agent that was supposedly deceased had returned from the dead.  
It didn't take long to reach the office in the back of the building, where brick walls met glass.  
  
"Did you already welcome him back?", the boy asked absent-mindedly, hands in a black box with red and copper wiring sticking out at various edges.  
  
"Of course, I was the one who... you know.", she shifted her weight from one leg to the other and clutched the pile of files in her arms closer to her chest.  
  
The skinny boy needed no further hints.  
  
"You killed him.", he concluded, paused for a second to look her into her dark brown eyes squinting, then continued, "Must have been quite the scene for you, having a ghost wander these halls."  
  
She laughed, soft and brief, then placed the files on his glass desk, which at this point was already filled with books, cables, screwdrivers and a cup that looked like it was collecting dust on top of untouched tea.

 

"M wants you to go through the equipment here.", she said, trying not to push anything off the table before she turned to leave the Quartermaster to his recent project.  
  
"Ms Moneypenny, wait!", he said, the title of the file passing the corner of his eye.

"Don't worry, they've been returned a while ago.", she said.  
"I guess I can give it a look.", he replied.  
"007.", the file next to him said quietly.

 

He shifted his focus back towards the computer under his hands. But his mind kept jumping back towards the file in a buzzing notion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know it's not Sunday, but here are some more chapters!   
> If any of you want to read them early / help correct my mistakes, drop me a line and get the beta version!


	7. Chapter Six

Gun and radio. Brave new world.   
  
"Q."   
  
"007."

Shaking fingers, tucked into a thick parkas jacket.   
Unusual, the tired man thought, as they sat in the quiet before the storm.   
  
Unusual, the skinny boy thought, when he noticed the way the other man carried himself. Something odd, something broken, something hidden, but mostly plain. As if he was bound to a time that had passed, pulling him towards his grave.   
  
Q tried not to think about it.

The fear. The potential loss. A life that would be in his shaking hands eventually, something that wasn't just copper wire and liquid cooling.   
He had been told to see it that way. He had had a test run.   
He had experienced loss. He had blamed himself.   
  
His eyes began to wander across the agents hands, his face, his wrinkles and his suit.   
And he cursed himself quietly, just on his mind, for thinking he was any different, any less broken, anything less than himself.   
  
There was a certain distance between them.   
Words, that didn't need to be spoken.   
  
"Q.", the agent said softly.   
"Yes?", he replied promptly.   
  
"Looking forward to it.", the taller one said, hand on the metal case, as he lifted himself from the bench.   
"Old dog, new tricks.", the smaller one replied, smiling to himself, eyes on the painting in front of them.   
A simple game.   
Pretend.   
  
To the strangers in the National Gallery it was nothing. They had barely noticed an exchange of weapons, a first meeting. And if they did, it had passed them quietly, nonchalantly, as a random encounter between strangers.   
  
Q sat there for a while, running through his mind what could have been. What had been, and what it could have meant.   
  
The agents file was neatly resting on the centre of his glass desk from that day forward. Eve was the first to notice, making her usual rounds around Q Branch.   
The Quartermaster pretended he didn't notice her staring at the mess clearing up around it, permanently. He pretended it was nothing but a whim and began moving equipment to a different place in the workshop area.   
  
Further down the office, where the shelves were stocked with dusted-off equipment, he began working on prototypes he had found notes on.   
He began reading up on his predecessor, exploding pens, timer watches, visors for assault rifles that would auto-lock onto a target with a blink. Something, anything. Convincing.   
  
"Pride, isn't it?", Eve began joking, while day and night shift exchanged seats in Q-branch one too many times to count.   
  
A short glimpse at his coworker told him it wasn't what she meant, but was afraid to say. Something so delicate she could probably not handle in front of the others, frequenting the branch.

 

"Sorry to disappoint you.", he mumbled absent-mindedly, reaching for a set of screwdrivers that was quickly pulled aside.   
  
His hand touched the cold surface of the table. Dusty. 

As he looked up from a yet unidentifiable part of metal and wires, expecting to find a grinning Miss Moneypenny, two sky-blue eyes stared back at him.

 

"007.", he stuttered, but managed to get a hold of himself again, quickly. Control.


	8. Chapter Seven

"There is something I need", the agent declared.  
  
Direct. Formal. Probably not approved or anywhere tangibly legal for that matter, the Quartermaster concluded.  
  
The taller man put a clear plastic bag on the glass table, metal pieces singing a song of dried blood and broken flesh for a reminiscing second.  
The skinny boy raised an eyebrow reaching out for it with one hand, bringing it closer to his eyes.  
Definitely blood.  
Definitely trouble.  
  
"Can you analyse these metal shreds for me?"  
"Not exactly yours I believe?"  
"If making its way through my body counts?"  
  
A short pause followed. Not exactly short, in their eyes.  
Not exactly a pause in their worlds.  
  
Possibilities, questions, a nod.  
  
"Do I need to fear for an abrupt end to my promising career in espionage, 007?"  
  
The agent smiled. Genuine.

 

"It's Bond.", he said, waving at his Quartermaster in a brief goodbye, a gesture that said something along the lines of ' _I am counting on you_ ', "James Bond."  
  
A name.  
A brief smile, reflecting on Q's face.  
There was something about his request that he couldn't resist.  
And he had read the file.  
The file of a man who could seduce women in enemy lines who were well-aware of his name and status. Women who were signing their own death tolls with lipstick smudges and a hint of olives in their breath.  
  
A name that saved and destroyed.  
And if he had told it to anyone else it would be with a license to kill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the long delay, I was stuck in midterm hibernation!  
> Hope you're enjoying the newer chapters!


	9. Chapter Eight

 

  
  
Silence, a slow heartbeat echoing through the nearly empty apartment. Up the high ceilings, along the freshly dusted bar, waxed floors, perfect paintings of endless seasides.   
A small window in the life of a man that never existed, drawn out in a husky, long sigh.

  
There was something, lingering on his mind. Something dark, lurking in the shadows, that wasn't his usual territory. This time it wasn't a trigger being pulled, a piece of evidence or a hole in the system someone could sneak through that easily.   
It kept him awake and sober until late at night. It had him staring at his dark phone screen, waiting for something.   
And he wasn't sure what it was, but something made his heart rate jitter, for the first time in a while.

  
He balanced a glass of whiskey on his fingertips, ice slowly melting into the liquor as he sat in the darkening room.   
  
Suddenly, his phone screen lit up, sending a heave of adrenaline down his spine, tingling at his fingertips as he took a look.   
  
_"I'm having a problem with the printer, can you come to the office when you read this?"_  
  
A code for a dangerous situation, easy to decipher even by an amateur.   
  
But there was something that put him on his feet and out the door immediately, tackling a motorbike driver off his vehicle at a red light and riding off through the moonlit city immediately.  
  
With that pride of his, that easily flustered, awkward smile, Q wouldn't ask for someone else's help.


	10. Chapter Nine

"1,70", the crumbled up piece of paper said, piled on the bodies of its foregoers, date stamps growing further apart lately.  
  
He would lose track of hours, days blending into each other. Blur. Like he had experienced it before. In a past life.

Q shivered at the thought of it, his eyes wandering over the papers and computer parts on his table to his hands. Scars. Marks. Had anyone noticed? He could feel his heart beat loudly from his chest and his ears shoot red with blood.

  
"You thought you could get away.", a voice echoed through the empty headquarters. Hollow yet close. Like the ghost of a distant memory that haunted him in his sleepless nights.  
He lifted his mug with two hands.  
Q closed his eyes and took a sip of tea, the hot liquid slowly running down his throat. The bitter taste, something to hold on to, as the floor to his feet began dwelling up with thick mist, slowly creeping up on him.  
  
Then, the lights went out.  
  
All of a sudden his workstation, the entire underground lab, was covered in darkness. His breath grew rapid and uncontrolled, his eyes shut tightly.  
_There must be a way out_ , he thought to himself as he began to panic, _there is always a way out!_

 

"Poor little boy", the voice swept through the room, past the glass, along the dimly lit computers, the big buzzing screen, the workshop table with its tiny computer parts.  
  
_It's not real, he thought to himself_ , as he sat down the mug and a small noise of porcelain on glass broke the echo.  
A tiny token in the darkness of this familiar place, a small gleaming light at the end of the corridor.  
  
Yet he did not dare to open his eyes.


	11. Chapter Ten

"Vauxhall", the street sign said.

Orange and yellow lights passed him as he narrowed his eyes against the steady flow of traffic, driving in slalom through the slowly moving cabs that were transporting the hearts of London's night life. James' heart was racing with adrenaline, and he couldn't slow it down. He had a bad feeling about this. Possibly a trap, possibly another attempt to tear apart this impersonal, cold family of his that he had grown accustomed to.  
He knew more than well enough that nothing was forever, but someone wanted them to watch as their wold was falling apart and he could not let them keep going. This wasn't about Queen and Country, this wasn't just about MI6 or M. Something bigger was in motion yet once again and he could only grasp at the straws that were presented to him.  
As the image of the skinny new Quartermaster crept into his mind he shifted gears and dashed onwards through the traffic.

"Vauxhall", another sign with a smaller number under the word said.

"Road blocked", yet another sign said.

The agent scoffed quietly and led his temporarily borrowed bike off the road towards the riverside where small waves were painting a familiar ensemble with the night lights. And there it was. A ramp that sent him flying past the blockage within seconds, leaving dark rubber marks on the pavement.   
And for a second he wondered about what M's face would look like exactly as she would lecture him about not making things so public, not pulling stunts in public, right in front of civilians, CCTV cameras and local authorities. Something was off that night, not only at MI6.   
  
The streets were surprisingly filled with cars for a weekday night, yet most buildings he passed were only dimly lit, and even traffic lights were blinking yellow the closer he got to the new headquarters. He didn't have the same knowledge on technology and hacking, engineering exploding pens and palm-print guns as his Quartermaster, but he would have to be an idiot not to notice this was sloppy work at best. An amateur, hungry for attention, putting on a show in the middle of a moonlit night. How someone like that had come to the point of posing an actual threat to national security was questionable, but James was sure he would find out very soon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone & thank you for the ongoing support! 
> 
> I've been put on involuntary hiatus by the fact that I suck at coding and needed to cram really hard the past weeks to catch up.  
> Expect more regular updates from now on!


	12. Chapter Eleven

A dim noise, growing larger and larger emerged once more from the edge of the dark headquarters.   
  
"Got nowhere to run and nowhere to hide!", the echo mocked him, shaking palms now covering his face.   
  
Too afraid to look, too afraid to breathe.   
Q was shaking, but he knew he could end it.   
He just didn't know how.   
His mind was racing his heartbeat for survival, hitting dead ends left and right.  
  
Maybe they had shut down for the night.   
No, they never shut down the lights, he noticed that the first time he stood past working hours.   
And then again the second time, when his watch said two A.M. when he had still been on his second coffee before breakfast.   
  
Maybe they had a power outage.   
No, this was MI6. Not a corner shop.   
Besides, the computers and servers were still buzzing.   
  
Buzzing. _Buzzing?_   
  
It suddenly occurred to him, as he wrestled with the What If's and demons of his past that lingered over headquarters that night; Another attack.  
  
_Of course._   
  
Wait until they were asleep. Wait until they turned their back.   
  
Q's eyes shot open and he dashed across the room, eyes on a certain ragged laptop, held together by duct tape and good intentions only, as he huddled up a bunch of cables and a bright orange screwed-open hard drive.   
  
_Not today_ , he thought, _not while I'm still breathing_.   
  
He quickly made his way through the dark, fiddling for a hatch handle in the ground and climbing through.   
If there were two things he hated it was narrow spaces and heights.   
And someone else.


	13. Chapter Twelve

The building was quiet and dark, sitting in the dim light of street lamps and the neighbouring compounds.   
Vauxhall didn't seem the same, with Westminster casting dark shadows on the old shell of the former headquarters.  
  
James wasted no time rushing through the tunnels, gun ready, earpiece in position, waiting for something to break radio silence.   
  
"007?", he imagined the Quartermasters voice, followed by instructions on where to head. Followed by a vaguely snarky remark. Something. Anything.   
  
Radio Silence.   
  
"Damnit Q, are you there?", he hissed under his breath, pressing down on the tiny device lodged in his ear, but as he anticipated, it stood quiet and static with the constant echo of his heartbeat reminding the agent that he was no longer in his prime.   
  
He made it through the tunnels, past empty security and disabled doors, into the dimly lit room, where only a single lamp was illuminating the glass office overlooking Q branch.   
  
"M.", he mumbled quietly, before rushing up the short flight of stairs, where locked doors greeted him.   
  
Without wasting any further thoughts on it, James paced through Q branch, picking up a swivel chair and throwing himself against the glass door, wheels first.   
  
A loud noise of shattering glass followed by a quiet alarm in the distance. Har to make out. Where was it coming from?   
  
The agent paused to catch his breath and listen.   
  
There was no doubt.   
The noise wasn't in the distance.   
But in his ear.   
  
"Q!", he said, hoping the earpiece wasn't defect.   
  
_It wouldn't be_.   
_It couldn't be._  
  
It was his technology. His engineering.   
  
  
Q was still in the building, and he was quiet.   
Too quiet.

 


End file.
